1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to multimedia computer systems of the type supporting compact disk (CD) read only memory (ROM) drives and, optionally, sound and video adapters, and more particularly, to a CD-ROM player which only requires inserting a CD-ROM disk into the CD-ROM drive to activate and execute whatever program may be present on the CD-ROM disk.
2. Background Description
Computers have come into wide spread use, and a wealth of educational and entertainment programs are available on CD-ROM disks. Installation of the CD-ROM disk typically involves copying some files on the CD-ROM disk to the computer's hard drive to take advantage of the throughput speed advantage of the hard drive relative to the CD-ROM drive. This is a tedious, time consuming, error prone, and sometimes expensive process, as when incompatible or the wrong hardware is installed. An intimate knowledge of the system, the drive, the program on the CD-ROM disk, and their dependencies and interactions with one another is required.
A large portion of the population is still unprepared and afraid to go through this process of installation. For those who are prepared and not afraid, difficulties, errors, and frustrations are still extremely common. For example, the proliferation of different kinds of sound cards and video displays from various manufacturers requires a user to know both the specific type of hardware adapters used in his or her system and the specific configuration details of the adapters, such as its interrupt number, address space, and the like. In addition, once successfully installed, the user must remember the specific sequence of commands to execute the program. Though this latter problem has been somewhat addressed by designing intuitive interfaces, such as provided in the Windows and OS/2 operating systems, navigation of the interface still requires some degree of computer knowledge. Furthermore, the majority of the population does not possess this knowledge and, therefore, they cannot avail themselves of the tremendous opportunities and advantages that CD-ROM disks and programs offer in both education and entertainment.
By comparison, typical household devices and appliances, which are widely used by the general public, generally have simple interfaces. For example, video cassette recorders (VCRs) can play any recorded video tape of the fight format, requiring the user to insert the tape and push the play button. At the end of play, some VCRs can even rewind and eject the tape cassette automatically.
There are currently available CD-ROM players with proprietary operating systems which require independent software vendors (ISVs) to write software specifically for unique hardware/software configurations. Examples of some of these players include Tandy's Video Information System (VIS), the 3DO player and Phillips CD-i player. Such players, however, can only play CD-ROM disks which are developed for that particular player and cannot play widely available CD-ROMs for personal computers.